Ok, people. Don't expect a balanced mod here. This requires OXCE+ to run correctly (I use 3.3+) so make sure you only test it with that if you want to try it. The sounds work best at a low sample rate.

Okay, I have two things to say, one of which a lot of people are doing to dislike.

First off, that new explosion animation looks terrible. It looks extremely out of place in X-Com's setting, and I don't just mean because it doesn't match the vanilla "skull" explosion, I mean it looks like it doesn't even belong in the game.

Secondly, do you do handobs/floorobs too? I have been STRUGGLING to get some decent Bigobs/handobs/floorobs for a project and you might be the go-to on them if you're willing to set aside some time and give me a hand.

I am not in a mood or situation to really invest much time at once into any projects. I just kind of do what I can when I can do it. I will say though that on a provisional basis you can send me assets to either improve as I get to them, or render as other forms of graphics like handobs/floorobs as I have time to do so.

On the explosion, I guess that's a matter of opinion. I got really tired of the explosion sprite after a few missions to secure crashed planes. It's so obviously a skull that the only remaining benefit of how it's made is better layering, IMO. So I went with the Duke Nukem one for its generic Nuke-like, "america fuck-yeah" cheap explosion effect quality.

It's cool, I know people have a life outside of the net, so no hard feelings!

If it helps, I can possibly do stuff on a "let me see what I can do" basis. "Dedicated team member or artist" I can't do right now. I'm too depressed. Yeah, I know. To depressed to draw cheap pixely guns. But it's the truth. I don't really do well at keeping up on any of my hobbies or projects. Like if it makes sense, though I'm perfectly willing to do a sprite favor every now and then, I have like five other projects in other games I'm working on. Ironically one on the back-burner is a ZDoom project based on XCom.

Like let me know here, or in PM what kind of sprites you need and I'll see what I can do when I can do stuff. I mean I can't guarantee the same speed as I did then, but when I was really starting to sprite XCom weapons, most of them were made in one week, so I clearly can at least try... I'll have the decency to give you a new timeframe if I can't get anything even nearly soon.

I know it isn't like a good dedicated agreement to make resources but I hope at least something about that offer works.

Also to everyone else, I'd like to know if you have at least poked around in the mod I uploaded. No, I mean it. You could have even opened it just to peek and not play it and I would want to know at least what you thought.

Yeah, it's less that I don't want to, as I like to help people with sprites. It's good inspiration sometimes. It's more though that I'm too depressed and inconsistent to really be effective for like, a position as a spriter for a project. I can do one or two just fine so long as I can do them on my own time.

Also I don't know when I might be able to release a more general release of this mod. In any case it'd be nice to hear at least something about it. I mean it occupied at least a month or two of good time to playtest to the end...

I actually think the explosion sprite works better than the previous one, the rich colors really work well with X-Com's diverse color palette, and after a bit of fine-tuning I can see it becoming a replacement for the default sprite.

I played this mod for a bit. I think there's too many weapons to pick from, but it's fun. I ran a terror site and some other missions. Overall I'd say the guns in this mod are a fair bit more powerful than the starter guns in vanilla. The tanks are straight-up OP. And interception is a bit harder but not too bad.

Given the low price and overall lack of drawbacks, there's pretty much no reason not to switch immediately from Skyranger to Skymarshall, especially considering how OP the tanks are. The Skymarshall is much better at carrying tanks inside.

I will definitely agree it's unbalanced. I feel kind of like aside from balance the main point of my mod is that humans are a bad group to invade since they turn any technological advantage into their own over time. Sorry to all that I've been offline for so long.

Also I was hard-pressed on whether to nerf tanks or not. I figured overpowered they could be the double edged sword that lets people clear aliens out of terrorzones and other spots in the quickest and dirtiest way possible. There's also the whole thing that each tank at a later point could be four power-armored lunatics with shotguns and machetes. Or even miniguns and LAWs. At least as far as space usage. (I'll totally admit parts of my mod are for both revenge, and the concept that at some point that tech will come into play against TFTD aliens. Maybe that's a good idea for later. Link what I have to a TFTD mod where the player feels over prepared but is in fact under prepared.)

Also I was hard-pressed on whether to nerf tanks or not. I figured overpowered they could be the double edged sword that lets people clear aliens out of terrorzones and other spots in the quickest and dirtiest way possible. There's also the whole thing that each tank at a later point could be four power-armored lunatics with shotguns and machetes. Or even miniguns and LAWs. At least as far as space usage.

Why not have both, but on separate tanks? You could have one really durable tank that doesn't hit very hard, and a slammer tank that smashes the enemy but isn't so tough. Or some other trade-off like that.

When you have power armor on your soldiers, you would ideally have better tanks, such as hovertanks. That way you can make your soldiers stronger without making your tanks useless. In my mod I upgraded the laser tank to have armor between the basic tanks and the hovertanks, and I gave it a bit more speed also.

INteresting, added it here! How about to put it along the sprites (like these) in the first thread page, and a detailed changelog? Also, some sprites are not shown, as the ones in the secon page

Current version is labelled 0.5 And in the end, some starting game screenshots!

Edit: I wonder if it may be conpatible with Area 51?Edit 2: Removed duplicated screenshotEdit 3: some inventroy sprites, like magaznes and HE grenade, semms to be offset, nedd fixing for the next (eventual) version

Hey all. I've been playing OXC again, with this mod. Thinking of patching a few things, retesting it, and then moving onto a TFTD mod.

Kinda want to inject some William Gibson-esque Cyberpunk (no, not like the game from the transphobic devs, the actual genre) aesthetic into it. I get and like the retro sci-fi feel it has but with the difficulty and my general spriting style I think 80's/90's anime and cyberpunk style will make a good replacement.

When I have a sheet of some mockup equipment/weapons I will post them here. For now, a snippet of an old design file I plan on following as best I can:

Quote

PLANNING PHASE:

Abstract Goals: Complete Overhaul of TFTD, bringing difficulty through more initial variety and changed alien weaponry. Old friends from the previous mod and new fictional futuristic weaponry to go with it.Starting difficulty overhaul that focuses on actually hitting the enemy and being smart rather than dying from weird not-really realistic alien attacks.

Restructure: A golden-age tarnished after the depletion of world elerium reserves. With the remainder locked away by first the COFN, and then their successors,

Alien Goals: All Aliens have melee or melee weapons. This means contact with any alien is dangerous.

Weapon Goals: Diverse Sci-fi inspired arms and equipment. Underwater-based weaponry, and Alien Disrupter weapons. Explosions kill through hydroshock, making all explosives a bigger deal.Strange hybrid weapon classes that are hard to utilize among easier to use but somewhat lacking standard weaponry.

A who's-who would include dart/flechette weapons, torpedoes, harpoons both CO2 and rail/gauss assisted, explosive tipped harpoons, bang sticks,mining tools, spec-ops weapons of current times, and the best of oshii's sci-fi weapons. Some really old but economical and heavy stuff should existlike the return of the M2, usable from the beginning this time.

Also balancing questions: What's missing from Xcom's arsenal? More importantly, how do I strengthen aliens without overpowering them? How might I add specialty units? (I have wondered at plasma pistol/alloy sword muton terror units)